


A Master's Responsibilities (and Regrets)

by The_Great_Octopus



Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Sex, Angst, BDSM, Bargaining, Branding, Breaking and Entering, Dom/sub, Domestic, Dominatrix, F/F, Flashbacks, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Legal Slavery, Lesbian Sex, Master/Slave, Non-Sexual Submission, Office Sex, Past Abuse, Past Relationship(s), Performance, Rough Sex, Sexual Slavery, Sleep Deprivation, Strap-Ons, Workaholism, Workplace Relationship, mentions of torture, slave trainer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:06:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27628586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Great_Octopus/pseuds/The_Great_Octopus
Summary: Jane is tired. After a particularly traumatic event happened in her life, she tries to bury herself in work, unable to move on. Thus, when a young runaway slave girl breaks into her house late one night, Jane, yearning for a chance at resolving her guilt, offers to help the young slave.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	1. An Unwanted Guest (and Happy Memories)

There was a city.

It shall not be named here.

It’s a nice city, as nice as any developed piece of geography can be reasonably described as “nice”. Its scenery a pleasant blend of natural greeneries and manmade buildings carved into sections by streets of paved concrete. The warmest days there were bearable, and the coldest never overstayed their welcome.

Near downtown laid the pride of this nice city: a rectangular building, way too rectangular to be comfortable and bearing an exterior of reflective glass, stood out like a sore thumb in its environment. At the end of a highway that connected directly to the airport and surrounded by luxury hotels, the smooth cuboid looked to all uninitiated like an abandoned alien artifact that was pristinely kept.

Jane worked here.

Northward from the cuboid, a relaxed forty-minute-drive-going-ten-persent-over-the-speed-limit distance away, laid her home: an old house in relative isolation within a gated, wealthy neighborhood.

Jane mostly worked here, too.

* * *

It was late, well past midnight and entered early morning. Actually it’s _very_ late, Jane thought distantly, sitting in her bed, _or would that it make it early?_ Had the sky been clear, the first ray of sunlight would have already bled through the horizon. Pausing on that thought, her eyes drifted to the window. The storm was raging outside still, showing no sign of stopping any time soon; lightings clashed in the clouds, their brightness piercing through the curtains in pulses and aggressively brightened up her room. She blinked.

When the room returned to the warm yellow of her table lamp, Jane returned her gaze to the book sitting in her lap, and realized that her brain retained nothing from the last fifteen pages or so. With that, she slowly let out a defeated sigh. Her fingers fidgeted with the pages in annoyance.

 _Of course,_ Jane thought, sinking into her bed and finally letting the sleepiness wash over her; _of course her first day of vacation would be buried in a miserable storm_.

Having its existence completely forgotten about, the cup of tea on her nightstand must have gotten cold hours ago; Jane reached past it and turned off the light. _Of course she had wasted the first night neither making progress on her ever growing reading list or getting a proper rest._

With tired frustration washing over her and more than ready to call an end to the night, the exhausted woman closed her eyes, and listened to the rain drops splattering onto her window, a static noise that got quitter the longer one listened to it, and became soothing after a while. The vibration from the thunders traveled through her body and became tingles on her scalp. Feeling her brain being squashed into mush with tiredness in real time, she wondered if tonight she could forgo her medicine and instead fall asleep naturally, cradled by the sound of the storm.

 _Clash!_ was the unique and unmistakable noise of shattered window glass coming from the living room, and the roar of the storm loudened because of it. Jane almost chuckled out loud in exasperation when she heard someone trying desperately and failing to be quiet inside her house.

_Of course. This might as well happen._

If there was any sleep brewing in her, it evaporated instantly, and left the baffled woman lying flat on her back, staring unblinkingly at the ceiling, more awake than ever.

She waited.

Her breath held.

Minutes passed, feeling like hours.

Her mind raced. Was there anything in her possession in this house worth fighting for? _Not really._ For it, the rational part of her brain was telling her to just roll over and go back to sleep, let the amateur invader take whatever they could manage to carry, and call the cop once they leave. She let out a sigh. However, it was then a muted cry came from the uninvited guest, who was apparently in the kitchen now, barely audible through the storm outside. The cry belonged to a woman, Jane noted, and one quite young.

_Interesting._

That was her first thought. Quickly, though, the indifferent bemusement turned into agitating anger.

“I’m getting robbed by some fucking teenager,” she whispered bewilderedly to herself, _a teenager, moreover, who’s as quiet a thief as a mischief of rats rummaging through trash._

More noise came from the kitchen, and Jane sat up to listen, brows furrowed with concentration.

It sounded like the little thief was now rummaging through the kitchen drawers. Also the fridge had been left open long enough for its alarm to beep quietly and repeatedly, like a pathetic plead for attention. Curiosity poured into Jane’s mind and mixed aggressively with her anger, finally providing enough drive for her to get up from the bed.

The rational part of her brain was screaming in the back of her head of the insanity and recklessness of what she’s about to do, but said voice was drown out by the adrenaline heightened with her sleep-depravation. She did find it humorous though, as a side-note to her anxiety and fear, that she was about to confront a home invader in her cotton night robe and blue fuzzy slippers. At least, she remembered to bring with her a protective instrument: a tranquilizer airgun she kept collecting dust on the highest shelf in her walk-in wardrobe—a perk of working in her place of work. Her raven hair a curly mess resting atop her shoulder, Jane rolled her neck and took a deep breath, and found her index finger slightly shaking against the trigger, the rest wrapped deadly tight around the grip.

Breathing out, she walked out of her bedroom and entered the kitchen.

It was, all things considered, quite a surreal sight.

All the cabinets in the kitchen were left with their doors wide open, like a scene from a haunted house movie; the fridge, too. Its alarm was still stubbornly protesting the predicament. On the counter, food items of all sorts were hastily laid out: fruits, cupcakes, biscuits, and canned food Jane almost forgot she had. Next to them was a backpack she did completely forget she owned. In the corner of the kitchen, at the end of a trail of muddy footprints on the wood tiled floor, there was---

Jane blinked. The arm that was being raised up to take aim with the tranquilizer stopped dead in its track.

\--there was a young girl, in no way an adult, small and dirty and shivering and soaked to the bones from the storm, stood half-crouched against the wall so tensely and so still she looked to Jane exactly like a frightened rabbit. Her eyes, widened with fear, darted back and forth from the woman’s face to the airgun in her hand. The girl’s own hands were trembling, clenched into fists so tightly against her chest that it looked as if she was in prayer. Her mouth was slightly agape in fear. Her body, though, was as still as a deer in headlights.

She was so still that Jane wondered if, in her desperation, the little intruder had hoped she could simply blend in with the wall behind her if she did not move a muscle.

Jane did not know how to react, standing in her robe and slippers and gripping a tranquilizer gun, now that the home invader appeared to be as dangerous as a wounded bunny. She stood still, too.

…and they just stood there, neither making a sound.

Eventually, the woman of the house pried her gaze away from the shivering figure and looked into the living room. There lied the pitiful scene of the crime. Expectedly, what was just minutes ago a six foot tall casement window reaching all the way down to one’s knees was now frames attached to the wall; the glass panels in million pieces scattered all over the wooden floor. With the barrier gone, the rain was pouring freely into the room, already pooling on said floor. The curtain was bellowing in the wind.

She closed her eyes, and took a forceful but measured breath through her nostrils. Her beautiful, rounded nose twitched ever so lightly.

The pot of plant that was in front of the window—one of the few she in her rare times lounging in her own home had bothered to keep alive—was also knocked on to the floor, its soil spilled out, turning to slush from the rain water.

“You know,” Jane finally spoke, slowly breathing out, defeated, “that window wasn’t even locked.”

Her voice came out a couple of octaves higher than she intended, sounding like a tired whine.

“You could have just come in without breaking it.”

When she looked back, the young intruder had fully coiled into a ball in her corner of the kitchen, hugging her legs, face buried in her knees. Her auburn hair, which must had easily reached her waist when dry and properly groomed, was now a mess sticking onto her shoulders and down to her back, twisted into spider webs by the storm. Apparently the only item of clothing on her body, Jane realized, was a dress clearly a handful of sizes too big for her. It, too, was now sticking tight onto her body from the wetness and coded in mud. Beneath it, her feet were bare, and bloodied, no doubt from the gravels outside and shards of glass in the living room.

In the state she was, the girl looked utterly venerable, and oddly beautiful.

_Huh._

Without herself noticing, Jane’s anger had now significantly dulled.

The refrigerator was still beeping, so the owner of the house quickly closed it first. With the irritating sound at last gone, she let out a sigh. The tranquilizer was laid on the kitchen counter; the girl did not look up, so Jane made sure she heard her doing so. The pitiful creature jumped at that noise.

“Hey,” the woman in the white night robe said, with as gentle a tone as she could manage, walking carefully towards the shivering figure. “I won’t hurt you. Relax.”

With that, the girl lifted her head, wild strands of hair now sticking to her cheeks, rain water streaming along the sides, dripping down her chin. Her stormy grey eyes finally stilled, meeting Jane’s ebony ones. Her mouth was still slightly agape; arms still hugged desperately around her legs, very distinctly _un_ relaxed.

Again, Jane sighed, this time smiling a half-calming smile at her.

Her eyes travelled downward, then, and immediately the smile froze.

The ruined black dress --which was clearly not originally meant for a body her size --its wide neck exposed a significant portion of her back. Surrounded by fading cane and whip marks, slightly beneath the young girl’s shoulder blade, there’s a distinctly mutilated patch of skin – _a brand._

_A brand of ownership._

The woman’s eyes widened ever so slightly, unable to completely mask her surprised realization: _this little thing is a runaway slave!_

All the gears were turning inside her mind; countless thoughts were flashing into existence at the same time –thoughts Jane was too tired to fully process. She stilled. The following seconds of silence felt like eons.

“Umm…” she spoke after a short while, clearing her throat, her voice a whisper now, “what’s your name?”

The girl rested her chin on her knees, fixed her gaze on to the tiled floor, and said nothing. Her dress, still soaked and wrapped tightly around her torso, wrinkled and flattened slightly, in sync with her breathing. _Not a bunny, not in this state,_ Jane caught herself thinking, very inappropriately for the current situation, _more like a drowned rat, and probably just as miserable._

When it became obvious the little burglar would not answer, the woman led out a hum to fill the space instead of the awkward silence. Standing up, she re-examined the kitchen. No object of value –if anything she kept in the kitchen could be considered “valuable” –was touched. Only piles of food were gathered by the girl, in the short time she had before Jane intervened, and piled hastily on top of the counter.

_Hmm._

“You must be hungry.”

The girl’s lips were still pressed into a thin line. Her gaze still fixed unmoved at the floor, though there were hint of tears welling in her eyes. Still, though, silence. Apparently, this little runaway was determined to test her patience.

And Jane’s patience was already wearing thin tonight, even before this mess. It was now all but spent.

_A show of force is needed, then._

“Okay,” was all she said this time, but her voice was colder than cold.

With that, she turned and walked towards the counter, grabbing the phone off of its stand. The dialing sound was loud; the ringing as it attempted to connect to the line was even louder, as Jane had turned the speaker on.

That got the girl’s attention, all right.

Her body straightened instantly. Her eyes were comically large, now, widened with fear.

The way Jane grinned at that was meant to goad, yet she would lying if she have said there wasn’t a rush of sadistic joy flowing through her.

 **“ _XXXX City Police Department. What’s your emergency?_** _”_ A voice called from the other side of the line.

“NO!” The girl finally said something, something being a panicked cry that was wrenched from her lungs. She flung herself at the woman’s feet, so quickly and desperately it almost made Jane jump. Her small hands grasped at her ankles pleadingly, so cold it made the matron of the house groan in surprise.

“Please…” Finally realizing how unhelpful the sudden unwanted touch was to her begging, the young girl quickly retracted her hands. She was still groveling at Jane’s feet, her entire body almost pressed to the floor, mumbling her pleads so quietly and piteously that she resembled a whining dog –one that just got kicked by its drunken owner and could in its mind never figure out why.

 _“ **Hello?** ”_ the person at the other end of the line sounded confused, and Jane felt the tiny figure trembling. Breath finally even, she stared at the tangled auburn hair beneath her, and counted to three in her head.

And she hung up the phone.

At the click of the line disconnecting, she sighed. Almost unnoticeably, the girl’s trembling lessened a bit. _Was it hope?_

“So you do know how to talk, isn’t that interesting.” Jane said, all her actual annoyance and put-on mockery could not stop a hint of pity from seeping into her voice. At her feet, the glum little figure sniffled quietly.

“Hey, look at me.”

This time, she did.

Her storm cloud eyes were now red at the rims from the tears. Her button nose twitched, still snuffling. _She really is cute,_ the older woman realized.

Her voice grew soft again: “what’s your name?”

“Lisa… ma’am.” The girl’s voice was hoarse, but utterly timid.

 _Lisa_ , Jane said silently to herself, engraving the name into her mind.

“And did your master give you that name, Lisa?”

At the mention of a master, Lisa tensed up again, expression turned instantly from pleading to fearful. So that’s one of the woman’s suspicion confirmed.

Crouching down slightly, Jane looked closely at the exposed brand again, and noted that there was no X burned on top of it.

“You are a runaway.” Her voice was neutral. A statement.

Lisa chewed on her lower lip, and inhaled sharply. The mood between them tensed up again. However, there was not a denial.

_So that’s two suspicions confirmed, then._

The woman of the house stood up straight, raked her fingers through her hair, and scratched at her scalp in frustration. This was turning increasingly complicated, _very_ much more complicated, in fact, which was objectively impressive, considering that it started with her confronting a home intruder with a tranquilizer.

_Right, first get an idea of how serious this actually is._

She wetted her lips with her tongue.

“Did you harm your master, physically? Before you ran away, I mean.”

“NO!” Lisa –the runaway slave girl –cried. It was so quick and sincere a denial, utterly aghast and seemingly offended that the stranger who she just tried to rob would suggest she could ever commit such horror. Jane believed her.

 _At least there’s that,_ Jane heard herself thinking, _not violent… Silver lining?_

_The dress, though…_

“But you did steal from your master, whoever they are, and ran away.”

There was a long pause.

“Please…” Lisa said, tears once more gathering in her eyes, voice so soft and quiet and sorry and _extraordinarily_ submissive, “I can’t go back. They don’t want me anymore… I’m begging you… ma’am… let me go…” She got quieter and quieter.

The pleading was continuous, but Jane needed to think. She cleared her throat, and the girl, still kneeling on the floor, immediately silenced, head lowered again.

Jane began pacing back and forth, contemplating. _It’s a very fucking difficult situation._ Then she saw the bag on the counter again. Half-heartedly, she opened it out of curiosity, and looked in. It was mostly the food Lisa had managed to collect, in the short while she was alone. There was an unopened box of expensive butter biscuits, which Jane was saving for herself for special occasions. She rolled her eyes. Beside it, there was…

“Ha!”

An involuntary laugh escaped the woman’s mouth, despite her being well aware of how inappropriate it was. Lisa almost jolted into the air, startled.

…There was a _book_ , lying next to the box of biscuits. It was a smutty romance Jane had started but never found the time to finish, originally being discarded to collect dust on the dining table. Apparently, Lisa, starving and disparate, on the run from the law, found it important enough to steal a book from the house she broke into, alongside food and other stuff necessary to keep her alive.

_What an odd little slave._

With that, almost all of her anger and frustration evaporated, and a new wave of sympathy and pity rushed over Jane, alongside a hint of amusement. Then, taking a deep breath, she re-examined the sorry, shivering figure.

 _She’s so young._ This finally dawned properly in her mind. With her large cloud grey eyes on top of her freckled button nose, Lisa looked no older than fourteen.

 _And she’s a runaway,_ Jane thought soberly. _If she gets caught by people sent by her master, they would no doubt be cruel to her. Her master would be furious too. Would they torture Lisa? Starve her? Scar her permanently? As is well within their lawful rights to do?_

Against all common senses, the woman felt deeply saddened by the potential fate of this runaway slave who robbed her house.

_If she gets captured by the law enforcement, it would be much worse. The beatings would be equally cruel. And then, after the sentencing in court announced by a sadistic judge, witnessed by a mocking crowd, a mark of rejection would be burned on top of her master’s brand. There would be a new brand pressed into her skin, one much larger and visible, marking her as a public property, subjecting her to the cruel fate the mark foretells, just like what they did to—_

Jane suddenly felt like she was suffocating, as painful memories rushed back into her mind. Chest heaving, she took in a few laboured breath. Her eyes felt hot.

_Just like what they did to Daisy._

Closing her eyes, she steadied herself.

“Hey…”

When she finally spoke again, her voice was so soft that Lisa looked up at her with worried confusion.

Whatever was left of her rational thoughts repeatedly examined the sentences she was about to say, and the thoughts were screaming at her to stop.

Perhaps it’s because it sounded like she was about to invite her home intruder to stay the night.

Jane finally looked into Lisa’s eyes.

“…You can stay here tonight, Lisa.”

_Huh._

It did sound _exactly_ like she just invited her home intruder to stay the night.

Lisa’s jaw dropped, eyes widened with shock and disbelief. So when Jane reached out and offered a hand to her, the slave girl understandably hesitated. Closely examining the apparent savior’s face, and finally believed the sincerity of the offer, she slowly took her hand and allowed herself to be pulled upwards. Her fingers, pale and almost blue from the cold, felt like icy vines wrapping themselves around Jane’s warm and sepia-colored ones.

She let out a wince when she stood on her battered feet. Standing upright, the top of the young girl’s head barely reached the woman’s nose.

“Please don’t sneak out again once I turn my back. You will be caught very quickly by whoever is looking for you. I am sure of that. I will not call the police, though, _I promise_. You will be safe here tonight.” Jane tried to comfort her.

“You do know what happens if a runaway is caught, don’t you?”

This, however, was a warning.

The girl shuddered, lips pressed tight together. Her bare toes dug into the floor nervously.

Jane’s instinct was to give her a hug, but settled instead with placing her hand on the young girl’s shoulders.

She felt the small body recoiling under her touch.

“Whatever you might have done, _Lisa_ , I will not judge you.” Her voice was barely louder than a whisper. However, weighty emphasis was placed on syllables of the girl’s name. “And if you allow me to help, I promise I will do everything that is in my power to make whatever may be coming easier on you.”

After a long pause, Lisa nodded, blinking away her tears.

Jane smiled.

Turning around, she reached into the pile of food gathered on the counter, and handed Lisa a chocolate cupcake.

“Good~”

With that, the woman led the young girl towards the guestroom, and the shower next to it.

With the door locked, Jean waited until she heard the sound of the shower before walking into the guestroom, and placed a first-aid kit on the nightstand. The slave girl should know how to patch herself up.

Returning to the kitchen, she suddenly felt completely drained.

The living room window still laid there on the floor in pieces, rain pouring freely through the frames. Jane stared at it blankly.

_Ah well._

_Fuck._

She wasn’t planning on sleeping, anyway.

* * *

**Months ago…**

**Jane was with… _her_.**

**She was with _Daisy._**

**In the relative calm of the night, the two of them embraced, both naked as the days they were born.**

**In the warmth of the bedroom –one of the countless in the hotels next to Jane’s place of work, under the dim pastel-colored light, black and white bodies clung fervently to each other. The bedsheets were a twisted mess beneath them. Soft music played quietly in the background, completely drowned out by the lecherous sounds they were making.**

**Jane was on her back, pushing herself up slightly and rested on her elbows. With the buds at their tips hard and swollen, her ample breasts rose and fell in sync with her quickened breathing. Waves of goosebumps washed over her copper skin. Slightly trembling with need, she watched, huger in her eyes, as the figure between her legs looked up, her lips and chin glistening with Jane’s lust. Then, Daisy slowly crawled towards her, dragging her lips across the darker woman’s skin, smearing Jane’s wetness onto her flat stomach.**

**Countless of soft kisses were adorned onto her breasts like raindrops. Jane mewled happily at that, and then gasped as the other woman griped her breast in one hand, her nipple pinched between two slender fingers. Daisy took as much as she could of the other breast in her mouth, rolling the taut nipple with her tongue, and tugged it between her teeth for good measure.**

**The sounds coming through Jane’s lips were lovingly wanton.**

**Releasing her nipple from her teeth, Daisy moved her lips above the skin right next to the swollen bud, and bit down, and sucked hard enough to bruise. She was marking her skin, like how one would do to their most intimate partner, or how a mistress would mark her personal property, and –**

**_\--and absolutely forbidden for a slave to do._ **

**Jane did not care.**

**Her body felt divine beneath this slave’s claiming touch.**

**Then Daisy finally raised her head to Jane’s level.**

**For the slightest of moments, they stilled, looking into each other’s eyes, and enjoyed the calm and intimacy between them. Their parted lips trembled in the close presence of the other’s…**

**And then their mouths crushed into each other, and their tongues twirled. All their feelings –their complicated wants and needs and insecurities and worries about this unique union –all the messiness that could not be expressed properly in words, in that moment, got communicated simply and beautifully as their tongues danced.**

**Jane felt like she was in a trance, like she was dreaming and awake and wandering, all at once.**

**Daisy’s body was lean, and toned. Her skin, rosy beige colored when illuminated by the sun, now seemed to radiate a soft magenta hue under the dim neon light. Jane’s fingers traced over the lines of muscles on her arms, and ogled lustfully at her sculpted physique. Her lover had the body of an angel.**

**Her breasts, pressed tightly against Jane’s, were comparably so much smaller and flatter. However, they still felt heavenly to Jane’s touch as she cupped them in her palms. Her yelps were pretty and filled with need as Jane twisted her nipples forcefully.**

**She really was so much stronger than Jane, and could easily overpower her if she had wished to dominate. Yet, when the woman-who-was-not-her-master slowly rose up and towered over her lying body, eyes half-lit with unsated lust and demanding her submission, the only thought going through the slave ‘s mind was to obey.**

**There were three short lines in the arrangement of an arrow seared between Daisy’s shoulder blades –the symbol of the company currently employing Jane. Her lady friend placed tender kisses atop of it.**

**However, there was no brand burned onto Daisy’s maddeningly perfect body bearing Jane’s symbol, nothing banded them together lawfully and forced Daisy to submit. Yet, she surrendered herself willingly and completely to Jane, mind, body, and soul.**

**Each of her wrists were bounded to her corresponding ankle with black leather restraints, spreading her legs wide open and leaving her throbbing slit exposed.**

**She mewled happily as Jane fidgeted with the buckles of the restraints, checking their tightness. Jane flipped her around, letting her face sink into the mattress and her lovely bottom point at the celling.**

**Straining her neck to look behind her, the sex slave giggled heartily and watched with great amusement as her lover, her master in all but name, struggled to secure the strap around her waist in her needy haste. So, as she was plainly asking for it, Jane pounced on her Daisy, forcefully griped a fistful of her light brown hair, and pressed her face into the futon. The contact of skins sounded loud and sharp, as she slapped her slave with considerable force between her legs; Daisy’s cry, on the other hand, was muffled by the mattress.**

**When Jane stopped, her slave’s manner properly disciplined, she pressed two fingers into her slit, and chuckled in approving glee at how ludicrously wet the slave was.**

**The girl’s pleads were music to her ears.**

**And thus, when she spread Daisy’s ass cheeks apart with her hands, nails digging into the soft skin, and began to force her tongue slowly through the tight ring of muscle next to her quim, the girl could do nothing but keen.**

**Then the rubber dildo, quite heavy for its reasonable size, was pressed against Daisy’s asshole with a generous coding of lube, the coldness of which made her gasp with anticipation. Jane slowly pressed in, and felt her slave slowly loosened up and took in the tip. She allowed Daisy a chance to adjust to its thickness, slowing her motion to a crawl.**

**Daisy’s moan sounded pained when Jane’s hip finally pressed against her ass, the entire false cock had gotten buried in her. Slightly concerned, Jane leaned forward, combing the bonded girl’s hair behind her ears, and asked if she was okay. When the girl beneath her, with her cock inside her, begged the master to continue, she smiled again and cooed soft words of approval and encouragement into the girl’s ear. And then she began to move, slow at first, and gradually accelerated.**

**There were sounds of flesh slapping against flesh.**

**The pain from Daisy’s cry vanished, and the sound turned utterly wanton, alternating incoherently between curses, pleads, and her master’s name. Jane rested her hands on the small of her submissive’s back, noting happily of the thin layer of sweat that glistening in the dim light. She increased her speed, and felt pleasure building up in her core again from the friction of the strap.**

**And Jane came again shortly, with the most beautiful moans filling her ears.**

**When they were both spent and sore and sated, they lied on the now messy bed, bodies still tangled together.**

**Jane pulled Daisy closer, and let her rest her head on her breast like it’s a pillow. With one hand she absentmindedly played with her hazel hair, and then mapped out the slave’s pronounced abdomen muscles with the other, comparing them to the flatness of her own belly.**

**And she told her a story:**

“ _There was a maiden, a long, long time ago, the fairest of all lands. This fair maiden of our story, she lived in a tower overlooking a lake. The lake was beautiful, yet nothing compared to her._

_Thus, two heroes from foreign lands came, seeking the maiden’s hand in marriage._

_They had a duel with the other._

_The maiden watched._

_It was an epic battle of divine protections and dark magic, unshakable might and unimaginable strength, broken swords and cloven shields._

_On the tenth day the duel ended, with a victor standing._

_He turned, and looked._

_And the maiden had already died from dehydration.”_

**Daisy looked up at her as she talked; her eyes fixed with gentle adoration on the way her lips moved with each word. She watched her as one would watch a lover.**

**Still, she rolled her eyes at the ending. So when Jane turned to look at her, seeking approval for her story, she pretended to have already fallen asleep.**

**She heard Jane chuckle.**

**Soon, she actually drifted to sleep, feeling fully content and safe in her master’s arms.**

**Jane, being Jane, was wide awake. Still, she, too, felt utterly content.**

**And neither of them could have predicted how badly Jane would soon betray this love.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...  
> expect more angst in future chapters.
> 
> Not sure if the extended flashbacks per chapter is here to stay, I feel like it might get annoying.
> 
> I've always intended for Jane, the default PoV character to have this dry and little bit random humor, so please let me know if it is getting across, and if it's too annoying to read.


	2. A Good Night's Rest (and Endless Promises)

There’s a highway in the city, at the end of it one would reach the city’s heart.

The heart, apparently, was a building the shape of a perfect cube. It was far too minimalistic to be called ugly, and had existed long enough to be iconic.

The strangeness of the shape, perhaps, was the least important thing about it.

There were hotels and nightclubs surrounding this heart of the city, some of them lavish to an absurd scale. Even so, these adjacent establishments could only hint at the building’s true importance.

Thus the city was renowned by all for it.

And people-, no, assets, from every corner of the world would be taken here by the dozens each time. Their skin tones ranged, from as pale as fresh snow, to as brown as evening mountains, from as yellow as desert sand, to as dark as obsidian glass. Some of them were so young that they had yet to grow hair between their legs, while some of them already had wrinkles showing on the corner of their eyes.

They’re, for a lack of more appropriate words, slaves.

All of them would be marched into this reflective cube, be they willing or unwilling. As a rite of passage, a simple brand resembling an upward arrow would be scorched onto their bodies, right between the shoulder blades. With this mark, all their rights as a human being, if they had previously enjoyed any, would be officially burned away.

Thus the city was hated by some for it.

In this facility that was the heart of the city, the slaves would be trained, from basic manual labours to the delicate art of pleasure.

Above all else, they were trained obedience and submission.

Once their trainings were complete, the slaves would be put on sale.

The ones who were impressive would be bought, and become personal property of their masters. Certifying this transaction would be the master’s personal insignia branded onto the slave’s body, much more obvious than the mark of an arrow.

Bound by the new brand, it would become the slave’s sole purpose in life to love their master and try to fulfill their every wish and demand.

Thus the city was loved by some for it.

And Jane, who dedicated most of her waking hours to this reflective cube, who lived a short drive away from this heart of the city, was, for most of her life, indifferent to it.

* * *

The chocolate cupcake Lisa devoured in seconds.

She had first waited, of course, right after the strange lady had handed it to her. Her mind was numb with shock and relief, then, so she just took the dessert silently and held it in her hand, blankly staring at it with her tear-stained eyes. With the other she held onto the strange woman’s offering hand, and allowed herself to be led down the hallway like a puppet.

Why was she smiling at her?

Her hand was so soft and so warm, too, she thought. It felt nice.

The slave girl found herself nodding as the woman gestured towards the empty bedroom and the bathroom beside it, feeling like she was submerged in water, or trapped in an unsettlingly surreal dream. When the woman again smiled at her, Lisa reflectively smiled back.

It was a few moments after the lady had turned and left her along when Lisa realized what she was still holding in her hand: a treat… a _reward?_ For what? For her breaking into the house? For her telling the woman her name? For her promising she would stay the night?

With newly furrowed brows, the slave girl stared at the chocolate pastry she was still holding like a strange artifact, confused, and suddenly wanted to cry.

The weird lady didn’t even tell Lisa her name.

At that moment, her belly growled; its pain in an instance pulled her out of her fruitless thoughts and reminded Lisa of the more pressing bodily needs.

Lisa wetted her lips again with her tongue, and lifted the cupcake to her mouth. For a brief moment, she could have sworn as an indisputable truth that there was nothing better in the eons of existence than this chocolaty baked good. Then the moment passed, and the cupcake was gone, along with pieces of the paper she was too eager to remove in time.

The shower made everything hurt anew.

Standing under the hot stream, the young slave clenched her jaw and did her best not to cry out loud. The blessed warmth brought back circulations to her numb limbs, but along with it was the searing pain along every fiber of her being. Washed away were the grimes and sands, revealed underneath were the bruises and cuts. Sighing, she stared emptily at her injured feet, now a deep shade of pink from the heat, as the water carried the mud and her blood swirling down the drain.

Even after everything, pain still felt like a stranger to her.

It surprised her every time she was reminded of it.

There was shampoo and conditioner on the shelf, so Lisa poured a more than generous amount onto her palm, and slowed worked out the tangles in her hair. There was only a moderate volume of whines when the soapy water inevitably flown into her cuts.

She bit her lips.

The pain was nauseating, but at least it distracted her from the dread that was still churning in her guts.

She just threw her entire life away.

She shut off the water.

The future, no matter how she saw it, was incredibly bleak, so she dried herself slowly, stretching this relative period of peace as much as she could, not wanting the next moment to arrive.

Of course, she had lied to the woman. She would get the hell out the first chance she gets. Then what? She didn’t want to think about it.

On the wall was a mirror fogged up by the steam, so the young girl pressed her palm to the reflective surface, silently relishing in the cool sensation. The young girl staring back at her looked tired; her small frame cut and bruised, her storm grey eyes empty and listless. Lisa numbly put on a smile to get the reflection to smile back. It looked so unnatural the slave found herself disgusted by her own image. If she had turned just slightly, the brand on her back would become visible to her, so she made sure not to.

The adrenaline calmed. The exhaustion returned.

Coming from the living room were sounds of the storm and frantic human movements and occasional frustrated cursing, and Lisa felt a mute rush of guilt. Dreading any further interactions, she wrapped herself in a towel, tiptoed into the guestroom and closed the door as quietly as possible.

The guestroom could be locked from the inside. This came as a surprise to the young girl –a pleasant one, but a surprise nonetheless. It felt weird to be grateful for the little guaranteed privacy in the house she broke into, but Lisa wasn’t about to complain after life had thoroughly battered her into submission. The sight of the first aid kit filled her with so much gratitude she almost broke into tears.

It felt less than pleasant to betray someone’s kindness, but right now Lisa could not afford to be anything more than selfish.

She needed to survive.

As she sat little more than naked on the bed and nursed the cuts on her feet, the outline of her plan was replaying into her mind: _wait until the woman falls asleep again, and then pack the food and maybe something that could be pawned into the backpack, find a new set of cloth –warmer this time, and then sneak out again._ Quite simple, really. After that, maybe she could walk away from this place for as far as her feet would take her. Then she could knock on every store and every motel asking for a job. Maybe they would even let her work and stay the nights in the small attics. There she could hide. She would be a hard worker, too, and she would promise not to complain about her wage. Eventually she would earn enough for a ticket on a ship headed away from this city.

Maybe then she could let herself forget.

The runaway slave’s youthful naïveté and previously sheltered experience allowed her this slim, ill-fated hope.

Now she just needed to wait, as her host struggled still with the broken window outside the room. The girl sat up straight on the bed.

…

…... 

The strange lady kept on working, with no sign of slowing down anytime soon. Meanwhile, Lisa’s eyelids grew heavier and heavier. This had quickly become a contest to see who can stay awake longer than the other person, and it was a contest Lisa was losing at _, badly_.

Remembering the book she had, in her hurried looting, shoved into the backpack in a fit of irrational rush, the struggling slave wondered ridiculously if she could ask the woman to lend it to her for the night. She could not remember the title, but in the brief flashes of lighting she saw the art printed on cover, and it left very little doubt to her as to what kind of book it was. She wanted to read it now, just to keep herself awake more than anything else.

The strange lady _laughed_ when she found the book in the backpack. Lisa found herself cringing with embarrassment from the hours-old memory.

And she was _still_ awake!

The blanket was so soft beneath her skin, and the pillow rested right next to her as a temptation of biblical proportion.

Might as well lie down and get under the blanket, it helps to stay warm, she told herself.

As she repositioned herself under the blanket, Lisa’s head felt like it was filled with lead, and it landed onto the pillow with a muted thud. It was doubtful if the strength of ten gods could lift her from the bed again.

The storm raged outside still. The roaring promises of soaking pain and freezing misery now, in the warmth and comfort of this unexpected and strange sanctuary, sounded to her like a muted lullaby. Thus, as her brain slowly turned to jelly from exhaustion, her thoughts blended together into an incoherent mess…

_They would totally kill me if they catch me… do they even care enough to look for me... mistress must be so angry right now… why did that woman let me stay…her hand was so soft… it felt nice when she touched me…should have just opened the window… she laughed at that book… laugh was so pretty…does she ever sleep… she was so pretty… looked so much younger than master… her voice also sounded nice…_

She really needed to sleep.

Just for a little while, she assured herself. She would be totally well-rested and awake when the woman finally goes to bed. She would have plenty of time to pack up again and sneak out.

With that, Lisa shut her eyes, and let drowsiness hit her like a claw hammer to the skull.

When she opened them again, it was almost the middle of the day.

* * *

Jane, of course, didn’t sleep at all.

On the window frame was a pitiful assemblage of cardboards and plastic wraps and duck tapes that was sure to sadden any capable builder to tears. Jane, however, was not, so she allowed herself a small sense of pride when the makeshift barrier stopped the rain from pouring into the living room, mostly because it had practically stopped raining at that point.

_Ah well._

Now she sat beside the no longer clattered kitchen counter, holding a freshly made cup of tea in both hands, and stared at the rising steam with the blank stare possessed only by those unfortunate souls who had for so long been untouched by sleep that sweet relief of death sounded preferable. Rain-washed sunlight poured from the horizon and splashed atop the counter, tainting her copper coloured hands with a warm golden glow.

Somehow, in her auto-piloted morning routine, Jane managed to make breakfast for two without burning the house down: omelets and bacons and tea with half a ton of sugar. On work days she would usually exchange the solid foods for another half-ton of sugar, but whenever she’s able, she did try to prepare proper breakfast for herself. Today felt like a special occasion.

The rest of the living room was, of course, still a mess. That she was saving for a specific individual. The muddy footprints on the kitchen tiles remained, also, now dried and hardened. This, too, she saved for later.

As if on cue, there was the sound of someone reluctantly opening the guestroom door, and the young runaway shuffled sheepishly into her field of vision. _Lisa_ , she reminded herself. Flashed into her mind was the way the girl timidly and fearfully told Jane her name. The corners of her lips curled up slightly at the memory.

_Lisa._

_It’s a pretty name._

The girl, now naked except the damp towel she used to dry herself wrapping around her torso, stopped dead in her tracks. Again she was dead-still with arms folded awkwardly in front of her chest. Again her eyes were comically large with nervousness; her back slouched slightly, her shoulders tense. Again she was like a rabbit in high alert, just like how Jane first found her.

The woman’s smile brightened in amusement, and with one hand she beckoned Lisa towards her. It was time for a proper introduction.

* * *

_Useless!_

That was Lisa’s final self-assessment, after a lengthy session of burring her face into the pillow and screaming every curse and insult she knew. There really weren’t that many actual ones she knew, so she made up some. It wasn’t clear how these new words were meant to insult, but it sure was somewhat satisfying to scream them out loud.

In her previous life, the one she ran away from, any cursing from her would be harshly punished, so Lisa always made sure she kept these un-ladylike outbursts quiet and limited to when she was alone. In hindsight, it felt weird that she still tried to uphold this behavior, since there was no way she could go back to her old life ever again.

What did it matter, now that she just blew her chance at gathering supplies and escaping?

_Useless!_

All she needed to do was to stay awake. Her life depended on it. And she couldn’t even do that and slept like a corpse when she wanted to stay alive more than anything.

And then the girl paused.

What if –maybe, just maybe – the woman was still in bed right now?

Hope again flared in her chest.

She for sure stayed up way longer than Lisa did, so surely she must be equally tired, if not more so.

Pausing on that thought, she leapt out of the bed and landed on her bandaged feet, and did her absolute best to force back a searing scream when the gruesome and painful cuts beneath the thin layers of bandages turned out to be gruesomely painful. After a few measured deep breaths, the girl searched with teary eyes around the room for any articles of clothing. The dress she had last night had been left in the bathroom, maybe the lady had taken it away already.

Eventually Lisa settled on just wrapping the damp towel around herself again to preserve some semblance of dignity. The wetness was cold around her skin, but she could handle it. Perhaps this, too, was defiance in a way, sine the woman who owned her hated it when Lisa tried to cover herself, not that this pity act of disobedience would amount to anything right now. It still felt right.

The backpack should still be near the kitchen counter, and if she’s lucky she could gather everything needed and sneak out and not disturb a soul. With that, she readied herself, and looked to the world like a woman on a mission, and walked out of the room as quietly as possible—

—And was immediately greeted by the lady of the house casually sipping tea by the kitchen counter, looking the exact opposite of in bed or asleep.

_fuckshitcuntassholebitchsonofadickstrawberrychocolatefuckme_

The young girl froze as her arms instinctively went up to cover her breasts. Her eyes went wide. Her improvised plan with zero contingency worked in had shattered within a second. She heard her host chuckle, and saw her charmed smile and a gentle hand gesturing for her to come forward. With her head now empty and her stomach refilled with dread, Lisa dragged her body towards the older woman. Time moved in slow motion.

There was a stool on the other side of the counter facing the strange lady. She sat down on it a little too carefully.

“Good middle of the day to you!” was the first thing the stranger and her host said, a cheerful greeting. It sounded so forced and strained that Lisa tensed up automatically.

So she _was_ tired, then.

“Good, um, middle of the day,” Lisa awkwardly greeted back, clearing her throat. Her voice cracked, her mouth felt like a desert. “I am so sorry…” It was her first instinct to apologize, though exactly for what she wasn’t sure. The window? That she kept the woman up all night? Or that she had taken her hospitality so for granted that she slept all the way until noon without a single care in the world?

Her voice trailed off, and she shifted her weight around nervously. Without meeting her gaze, Lisa still felt the woman observing her closely with those intelligent brown eyes, and was again suddenly painfully aware of her own nakedness. She blushed, fixed her gaze on the tiled floor with her head hung low. She tried to swallow, but noticed that the act was difficult. The chocolate cupcake and a long night of sleep had made her throat unbearably dry.

“Ah,” the strange lady noticed, and handed her a glass of water that was on the counter, “here.”

When the young slave reached out and took it, their fingers touched.

“Thank you” was all she managed to say, before tilting her head back and drained the glass in a handful of gulps, “thank you, ma’am.” Finally, she met the woman’s gaze, and found the same tired eyes and warm smile that brought her endless comfort last night.

“Jane,” the woman’s full lips parted as the smile brightened; her teeth were as white as china. “My name is Jane.”

Jane. Lisa repeated it to herself silently, and knew that from now on to her the name would be forever connected to the face with an exhausted yet relaxed grin. Then her stomach started growling again. The chocolate cupcake, as divine as it was, ultimately amounted to very little substance, and some much needed hydration reawakened her appetite.

Placed in front of the young slave was a plate of omelet and bacons clearly prepared for her. Her stomach burned. With no fork anywhere in sight, she reached for it nonetheless, perfectly willing to eat with her hands.

“Wait, not so fast~” a slender hand suddenly pulled the plate away from her, making Lisa frozen with fear all over again, “I think you have missed something.” Her storm grey eyes darted up anxiously to Jane’s face, and found the beautiful woman’s expression still just as patient as before.

“Before that, you need to clean up the mess you made,” clarified Jane, noting the girl’s nervous expression, and made a nonchalant gesture towards the living room. “After that, this is all yours.”

Lisa turned to look, and straightaway winced at the scene: there now was a thin, even coding of dirt all over the wood-tiled floor, with the countless tiny shards of glass remaining there still. What also remained was the set of muddy footprints she left leading all the way to the kitchen; she’s surprised she didn’t notice it when she was walking in again. The pot of plant she knocked over last night, however, was now nowhere to be found. The girl’s mouth opened, then immediately closed again, tight; she was shocked realizing that she was about to complain. _It’s just cleaning_ , she yelled at herself. She’s good at cleaning.

Quickly, she stood up, not wanting to risk annoying Jane, and gritted her teeth as weight again shifted onto her bandaged feet. It would be hell to clean up all those glass shards with bare feet, but she was not about to let that slow her down. As she turned to go, Jane again stopped her.

“Ah, hold on,” the woman called, seemingly was reminded of something. She kicked off her slippers –the same fuzzy blue ones Lisa saw her wearing last night, and pushed them towards the girl with a pointed foot. Her legs were bare from the thighs all the way down to her toes beneath her robe. Her feet were soft and attractively slender, and like the rest of her body a beautiful copper brown. “Here, so you don’t bleed all over my floor again.”

When she retracted her legs the arches of her feet rested elegantly on the spindle of her chair, and Lisa must have stared for a moment too long. Jane didn’t seem to notice. Blushing, the young slave quickly slipped into slippers and walked away, achingly aware of the warmth remained from Jane’s body heat. They were slightly too big for her feet, but she did not mind at all.

The cleaning was relatively painless and mundane, all things considered, and Lisa finished it quite quickly. The towel was immediately proven to be a bad attire for the task, as it kept slipping off with each minor movement. Jane didn’t even bother to watch over her, apparently, so she just let the damp towel drop to the floor and simply cleaned naked. Mopping the footprints, though, brought the runaway closer to the woman with each step, so Lisa made sure to put extra effort into each. When she finished, Jane beckoned her towards the counter again. The girl rapped the towel around herself again. A fork was now placed beside the plate, and replacing the water was a glass of milk.

Lisa finished all that was laid out so quickly that, when she looked up again, Jane was wearing an expression that could only be described as an amused awe. Then the woman stood up before she did, and took the dishes to the sink herself.

When she returned, she looked like she was ready to talk, properly.

“So, Lisa,” her tone didn’t become hostile, but did noticeably get more serious, “ready to tell me something now?”

Knowing this was coming sooner or later, the girl had used the time cleaning to think of her responses. Sitting up straighter in nervousness, she nodded.

“Is Lisa your real name?”

A simple question to start, and Lisa answered briskly: “Yes, ma’am.”

“Did your master give you that name, Lisa?”

“It’s the only I have been referred to for as long as I can remember.”

Jane hummed in acknowledgement, and gently tapped her fingers on the countertop in a steady rhythm. She had been either looking into the young slave’s eyes or staring at her own cup, Lisa realized, and never lingered her gaze on her body.

“How old are you?”

There was almost a hesitation. “Almost 16, ma’am.”

That was the truth.

“Hmm, you look a lot younger.” Jane looked down at her cup of tea again, and, for a moment, became quiet. Lisa grew tenser. Then, without looking up, in a monotone voice, the woman said: “Do you want to try guessing my age?”

Taken completely off guard, Lisa almost choked on her spit, and thoughtlessly blurted out a guess just before Jane chuckled and had a chance to stop her: “30!”

“That was meant to be a joke, sorry. _Please_ don’t ever do that again,” Jane’s tone was light and jovial, but the smile seemed impossibly even more tired than before. Then she paused, her eyes narrowed, her voice grew quieter. “Holy shit. Nice guess.”

That joke did not at all make Lisa any less tense.

She, too, looked younger than her age.

This woman, Lisa had deduced, is, first of all, strange. Secondly, she must have never owned slaves, and rarely interacted with slaves, considering how casual and not at all authoritative she was towards her. _Then what the fuck is the tranquilizer for?_

With the very next question, the mood suddenly changed again to serious: “Who is your master?” It was the one question she did not want to answer at all, but now she had thought of a proper answer.

“My master never told me her name, always made me call her ‘master’ or ‘ma’am’.”

It was a boldfaced lie. The young slave knew exactly who she belonged to, but she would never be free again if she told anyone her name. Jane seemed to be ignorant of her owner, and Lisa wanted to keep it that way.

“Why did you run?” was the next question.

“My master, she… she was cruel to me, and then she got bored of me. When she told me she was selling me to someone even worse, I ran.” was her answer. It wasn’t the truth, but not entirely a lie, either.

Eyes slightly narrowed, Jane rested her chin on her palm, and scanned the girl’s face carefully, searching, so Lisa made sure to meet her eyes and tried to look as genuine as possible.

A short pause of silence.

“Okay,” was all Jane said.

With that, the woman did a gentle stretch and yawned, and went back to sipping her tea, completely ignoring the young runaway. Not knowing what to do, Lisa sat still, and let nervousness freely gnawing away her inside. Silence again.

Finally, Jane set down the teacup. “So—” “Um—” Immediately, they both spoke at the same time. The girl apologized and instinctively shut her mouth again, but the woman gestured for her to continue. Lisa hesitated, but the question had been burning away at her since last night: “Why… didn’t you call the cops?”

Jane leaned back, “you do know what happens to a runaway when they are caught, right?”

Pressing her lips tight together, Lisa nodded.

The woman’s voice was always soothingly husky, but now there was again softness to it like a gentle love song. She continued: “As far as I’m concerned, all you did was breaking an old window that I was thinking of replacing in the first place, and spilling a pot of flower I probably couldn’t keep alive anyway, _and_ you also cleaned my floor for me, so I probably still owe you a favor.”

This time, when Jane laughed her placid dry laugh, Lisa shared a quiet giggle with her, finally relaxing a bit.

Sighing, Jane looked up at the ceiling, and said what she was originally going to say: “You were going to run away again, weren’t you?”

Lisa was so shocked that, for a moment, she forgot how to breathe.

“Do you know where you will go?” Still facing the ceiling, Jane rolled her eyes to glance at the girl, still no judgement.

Thinking back to her plan, Lisa gave a timid nod. Her grey eyes grew cloudy with tears again. Jane smiled softly at her.

“Wait here.” Her voice didn’t raise a single octave, but was so clearly a demand that the girl did not dare to disobey her. Lisa sat still, and only turned her head to watch the woman walk pass her in her bare feet, and disappeared behind the turn of the hallway.

Time slowed so much that it felt liquid and sticky as Lisa waited, not moving from her tall, wooden stool.

Eventually, Jane entered the kitchen again, properly dressed and looked breathtaking. Dress shirt buttoned to the collar with sleeves slightly rolled up; tight ankle pants reaching all the way up to her bellybutton that lovingly accentuated her curves. Both were as black as night. Her previously messy dark spiral curls were now combed into a tight bun behind her head. Patted away were the dark rings under her eyes; curled were her lashes, and glossed up were her lips. Attached to her ears were two purple teardrop earrings, glistening lavender in the sunlight. She looked like an elegant raven.

The young slave’s eyes slightly widened in awe as the older woman walked closer. In her hands she carried a purse and a neatly folded stack of clothes.

“I need to go to my office right now, so here,” Jane said to Lisa, handing her the clothes, “not really your size, but it should be way less suspicious than your old dress.” There was a plain white t-shit, a pair of black jeans, and a thin checker plaid denim jacket. These were quite simple attires, but the girl was reminded of the damp towel that was currently her only item of clothing, so she accepted them eagerly.

As she placed them onto her lap with slightly shaky hands, Jane reached into her purse and took out something. Lisa’s jaw dropped. The something turned out to be four $100 bills. The woman placed them on top of the counter, and tapped them meaningfully.

“Considering how easily you got in here, I don’t really know how to stop you from getting out again, so I’m not going to try.” She leaned against the counter, and looked down at the young girl, towering over her. “So, if you want to take your chances going on the run again, at least take these.” Her tone was almost warm, but the words rained onto the slave like bricks. “But, if you are still here when I come back, it means you have put your fate wholeheartedly in my hands, and I _will_ do everything in my power to help you.”

Completely stunned into silence, Lisa could not respond, so she sat as still as she could, eyes fixed onto the floor. Tears now leaked freely from her eyes. Her body trembled. Thus, she could only watch as Jane—her apparent savior, her beautiful guardian angel dressed in black—crouched down slowly until she was beneath her level and looking up at her, and grabbed a hold of her hands. The slave girl’s first instinct was to recoil from the touch again, but stopped when the woman held on to her, not forcefully, but insistently. Slowly she brought the girls’ shaking hands close to her mouth, and softly brushed her knuckles against her lips. It was not a kiss, but an achingly gentle touch—a silent promise, like how a person would touch a lover, or how mother would touch a child, and how no one had ever touched a thieving slave under their mercy. Lisa gasped.

Jane waited until Lisa finally met her eyes: “I promise you, I _am_ a friend.”

With that, she left the shivering figure still on the chair, slipped on her heels, and walked out the door without looking back.

* * *

Jane almost fell as she walked out of her home. More than 40 restless hours with no sleep had finally caught up to her, not just mentally, but physically as well.

_So, obviously the girl had told me a load of shit._

She rolled her eyes, still not even sure if her name was really Lisa. Clearly she was determined to keep her secrets.

_Whatever._

She could find out all about the girl by herself. Jane’s brows tightened into knots, as the unfiltered afternoon sun caused actual pain to her tired eyes. She still remember Lisa’s brand: a thorny rose burned into her back, right below her left shoulder blade.

Why did she promise so much to a girl she just met, a girl, who had tried to rob her, and who, by simply hiding her could get Jane into worlds of trouble?

Deep down, she already knew the answer, but she was not willing to admit it to herself yet.

The research would be a pain, though.

_Ah, well._

She was already awake for this long, might as well be awake for a while longer.

Shaking away her headache, Jane headed to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who finally got caught up on stuff IRL? :D  
> I think I can update this more frequently, now that I actually have some free time.


	3. A Proper Work-Life Balance (and Bad Secrets)

Each city is special.

Be they big or small, each city is special.

One has to squint a bit and be pedantic about the definition of _special_ , but still.

When one walk down a busy street, passing other hurried strangers with expressions of concentration, exhaustion, joy, indifference, or boredom, if one chooses to close their eyes, let the noises of the street fill their ears, and inhale its scent, one could smell the dream of a city. They smell like shit, sometimes, but not all dreams are pleasant. They are, however, hypnotic nonetheless, enough for the people to wear t-shirts and hoodies proclaiming their love for their piece of land, enough for them to root and cheer for teams bearing its name in sports they don’t even know the rules of.

Most things a city’s residents take pride in aren’t unique. Hell, they aren’t even special—mundane infrastructures that exist in any established community with large enough of a population, with only the name of the city to set them apart. This, perhaps, is enough for most people to take pride in the communities they live in.

This specific city, however, with a name that shall never be mentioned here, was truly _unique_.

It was unique because its heart was unlike no other. The heart, which was a building, its elegant beauty few others could compare. Its rotten sins none else dared to equal. It had an official name, of course, thought up by a whole elite design team who spent more time and effort than perhaps was necessary, for even though the name was sophisticated and the acronym catchy, most simply called it “The Cube”. That was a fine name, all things considered, for the building had been called far worse ones.

The Cube was, for a lack of better descriptions, a slave den, where a person’s body, a person’s mind, a person’s thoughts, a person’s life, a person’s soul would be gathered, and trained, and turned into a slave’s body, a slave’s mind, a slave’s thoughts, a slave’s life, a slave’s soul, and be put to sale.

A slave’s mind was desired, of course, for it knew only to obey. A slave’s thoughts were desired, of course, for they were filled with lust, filled with fear, filled with depravity, and filled with adoration. A slave’s life was desired, of course, for every aspect of it could be controlled by the master. A slave’s soul was desired, of course, for the slave gave it willingly to whoever bought them. However, the most desired of all, was a slave’s body, to be touched, and embraced, and adored, and fucked, and beaten, and mutilated, and put to work for free.

People were willing to pay good money for properly trained slaves.

The Cube was, above all else, a private company, thus before the money exchanged hands and their bodies branded anew, the slaves bore the company’s mark upon their backs—three lines in the form of an arrow. With this arrow, the slaves were bound with servitude to the company. The Cube owned them, minds, bodies, and souls, which, granted, was not too dissimilar to the dynamic any other corporation had with their employees, but only The Cube had the honesty to call them slaves.

The owners of this unique building came from a single family. Back when the city was only a collection of tents and mines and whorehouses cobbled together hasty upon mud and dirt and shit, hundreds of years ago, the Green family owned everything, from huge patches of land, to the trading of gold and liquor and even eggs. Gradually, the family narrowed down what trade they had complete control over, from a scattershot piece of everything, to that which was the most profitable of all: the trading of slaves. Thus the Cube was built.

Few people knew, and even few people—the people who truly knew their city but chose to love it anyway—were willing to admit: the Cube had more power than any government institution within this city, and the owner more influence than any elected officials. Now, the current matriarch of this dynasty, who sat upon the metaphorical and sometimes literal throne atop this monolithic, capitalist empire, was Mistress Eden Green.

Jane knew her well.

Perhaps, that was an understatement. At age 13, Jane was taken in by the Green family—if her memory served—against her will. There she was first introduced to Mistress Green, who was already fully an adult and a whole fifteen years older than Jane. There she was carefully groomed and trained on how to oversee and keep records of every shipment of assets. There she was taught to memorize and internalize all the behind-the-scene politics and interests of the shareholders, real estate developers, and politicians.

Jane was taught loyalty. In endless hours of studies she learned how to act in the interest of the company, and more importantly, in the interest of her mistress. For a group with as broad and powerful an influence as they did, the family kept their inner circle incredibly small. All non-family members of this circle were brought in and indoctrinated since childhood, like Jane was.

Being the matron of the most powerful family in this great city was an overwhelming burden, thus when it was Eden’s time, the family made sure Jane was ready to help bear it. Because of this, and the long years they had known each other, Mistress Green knew Jane as well as a person could know another person, even though one would be hard-pressed to call them friends.

Jane was Eden’s glorified secretary, welding immense power that was not her own. That, the family made sure to etch into her mind as a child: even though she got to decide the careers of hundreds of employees and the fates of twice as many slaves, usually without the need to report back to the matron; even though she got to oversee the sales of the slaves for up to hundreds of millions of dollars at once, if Mistress Green wished it, she would be nothing. Jane got used to working herself to the bones before she was old enough to drink. With that, perhaps it was inevitable for her insomnia to become almost life-threatening while she was in her mid-twenties.

She was prescribed medicine for that. Later on, she chose to take something else, which worked much faster than her sleeping pills.

It helped, then, that the young woman was surprisingly good at her job, even better than what more than a decade of hands-on training would entail. All the names of important clients, the shipments of assets, and numerous charts of all sorts presenting numbers too large to comfortably be representing the worth of a singular entity, all were imprinted into her mind as clearly as they were catalogued into machines.

She was efficient. Slaves were seen by most as objects. Jane learned to see those objects as assets, and then to see those assets as numbers on spreadsheets. For all her life spent and power granted, the young woman never felt any loyalty towards the heart. To the reflective building she felt only indifference. Only to Mistress Eden Green was her loyalty laid, a woman who she knew for most of her life yet by choice would never be close to. Jane was probably among only a handful of people in the world who were allowed to call her “Eddy” to her face, but she never did.

Before she was _Mistress_ Eden Green, Jane simply called her Miss.

She did get her own office, though, as the glorified secretary.

So there’s that.

* * *

Even with the sky clear and the afternoon sun high and bright, the air was still cool with memory of the previous storm. Jane wondered if she should have worn a jacket.

Had she chosen to drive, her destination would have been at least forty minutes away. In her tired state, the woman wasn’t sure she could complete the journey without inciting any tragedy, so she chose to take the bus instead. Thus, the journey was an hour longer. Jane didn’t mind, as she rested her head against the chilly windowpane and stared blankly at the scenery crawling past her. She felt the window vibrating with the engine of the bus, and every time the tired tread over slight inconsistencies in the road she would bonk her head lightly against the pane. The young woman found the sensation almost soothing.

On the patches of green beside the roads, common slaves were planting flowers. Their metal collars shone in the light, marking them as public properties, as the basic clothing they were given for the cold covered up their brands. No citizens passing by seemed to be paying attention to them at all, as the slaves labour on with their backs bent. The flowers were planted into spots designated by the city, arranged in –Jane had determined –the least aesthetically pleasing way possible.

Spring always looked drab in this miserable city.

For a building that looked like a miniature in a science fiction movie from the outside, the interior of the Cube was designed like a grand prison of old. Contrasting the harsh edges of the building’s shell, the inside was circular. Right in the center erected elevator shafts in the form of transparent glass tubes. Connecting them to each floor were glass bridges suspended in the air. At the end of these bridges were rooms filling out each level. They were, of course, constructed with glass wall as well. From any of these rooms, some smaller than a bathroom stall and some larger than a meeting hall, one could simply turn their head and watch people passing by vertically in the elevators. It was like prisoners from cells gazing upon the guards in their towers. One constantly felt like being watched within the Cube. One feel like constantly being watched the moment they step foot into the building.

The rooms had their specific uses, mostly for the training of slaves. One could observe these sessions from other side of the glass as one would inspect paintings in a gallery.

Jane stepped into the elevator, rubbing her brows with her fingers. The music playing quietly in the background was soothingly grating, and the weight of her ascension worsened her migraine so much that, for the briefest of moments, she feared her skull might split open. The floors of the elevator cars were also made of clear, reinforced glass, seemingly only for the sake of cruelty. Jane did not fear height, still she always willed herself not to look down.

If one, in their moment of weakness, chose to look down, they would gaze upon spirals of steels and glass panes and masonries and naked fleshes intertwined into a writhing and squirming mess, and would for the fraction of a moment believe themself in hell.

Jane’s office was on the second highest floor.

Being as high as she was on the corporate ladder did come with its perks. For one, the office she was given was large, maybe uncomfortably so. There was actually a layer of reflective film on the outside, so she was allowed blessed privacy within this room. Inside the heart of the city, this counted as a luxury.

Jane did her best to somewhat fill out the empty space, namely with a giant lounging sofa that took up more than a quarter of the room. There was very little incentive for the overworked woman to decorate the office further, but at least she allowed herself to be lavish on fulfilling the most basic of needs. Other than the sofa, the only other furniture of note was the U-shaped office desk facing the entrance, tame in comparison, but more than enough to hold two monitors and piles of junks Jane had never bothered to organize.

As she sat down in front of her desk, Jane interlocked her fingers and slowly cracked her knuckles one by one. There was an unsatisfyingly long pause between each pop, while the young woman planned out the day in her mind. First, she would need to find out about Lisa’s background. The girl had definitely sprinkled in lies somewhere in their awkward conversation, so potentially everything she told her about herself was a lie.

_The research might be very, very, very painful._

Secondly, she would have to find out about Lisa’s previous owner. This she had even less to work with. The girl did not give her a name, so all she had to go off of was her brand. Jane closed her eyes and recalled its design: _a thorny rose –three thorns, eight petals._

Thirdly… _and then what?_ Being Eden’s right hand woman, she had significant influence and power, so maybe invoking the Green family name would be enough to intimidate the owner into giving Lisa up quietly. If not? What if the owner was someone “important” who think they could get something beneficial out of bargaining with the family? A terrible decision, surely, but a tricky situation for Jane nonetheless, as she then would have to ask Mistress Eden herself for a favor. The young woman shuddered at that thought.

Sighing, Jane opened up the company’s data logs, and searched up the name _Lisa_. There was the option to narrow down the age, so Jane chose all the slaves under the age of 20. The girl looked younger than the age she told her, so she could never be too sure, but Jane was willing to bet her soul that she was not yet an adult. However, Lisa did not bear the company’s brand between her shoulder blades, so she was not trained here. The woman still held out hopes, though, as it was fairly common for third-party-trained slaves to still be sold through the Cube.

Appeared on the screen were thousands of pictures of slaves naked and collared, alongside close-ups of their faces. She scrolled through all of them, one by one. There were a few who looked similar enough to give her pause, but in seconds she was sure that they were not Lisa, for the girl’s face had already burned into her mind: her oval face with pointy chin, her sharp eyebrows, the light freckles splatter around her button nose, her auburn hair that reminded Jane of autumn breeze, and her storm grey eyes that were comically large whenever she was nervous. _A bunny._

Jane wondered briefly if the girl had run away again, the moment she left her alone, and now well beyond the woman’s reach, beyond her ability to help. _Can’t live their lives for them,_ Jane thought, like she out of all people had any rights to judge. _We all live with our decisions._ Still, the thought of her returning home and finding it empty again brought on a muted wave of anxiety. It discomforted her like a spring’s chill.

Sure enough, the young runaway did not appear under the name Lisa. Jane rolled her eyes. Thus, she removed the name Lisa from the filter and left the 20 age celling requirement intact. The list lengthened by tenfold.

_Yeah… did think it would be that easy._

Unclenching her jaw, she continued scrolling.

It was relatively quiet in the Cube today, at least in the upper floors, so Jane heard the clicking of high heels echoing in the hall. Without looking up, she knew it would be Carol. She did not want to deal with her right now.

The office door slide open.

“Holy shit you are actually here,” was how Carol greeted her.

“Why, I’m fine. Thank you. Please, come on in~” Jane said brightly, as the other woman was already halfway across the room. The passive-aggression was loud enough to wake the dead. Under the best of circumstances Jane did not have the greatest patience conversing with Carol, now, extremely sleep-deprived –which, coincidentally, was also most of the circumstances –she was outright annoyed by this encounter.

What was equally annoying was how much Carol was apparently encouraged by her tone, as her voice was now beaming with glee. “You know, off-days mean you don’t have to come to work, no matter how much you hate your home life.”

“Oh, my dear Caroline~” Jane put on an equally punchable grin, “~go fuck yourself~”

At that, the two women shared a hearty laugh.

Carol was a trainer, and quite an excellent one among the trainers under the company’s employment. All the slave trainers within the Cube were renowned for their skill turning unwilling assets into eager pets, and Carol was even more skillful than most.

_When they first met, Jane had just finished her studies and got put inside the Cube for the next phase of training. Carol was flourishing her whip and cracking it mercilessly against a bond slave hanging upside-down. She was naked but for a pair of thigh-high boots, a leather belt, and a police cap that was a costume. When Jane saw her during the tour, she had already worked up a thin layer of sweat, which made her pale body glisten under the bright light of the training room. With each swing of her whip, the movement caused her full breasts to jiggle slightly, and Jane was staring. Carol whistled to the girl behind the glass screen when she noticed her, and smirked as Jane blushed and hurried away._

_The week after they met, Carol invited Jane out for coffee. The same weekend she had the young secretary-to-be alone with her in a hotel room, naked and bond and gagging on her strap with another rubber cock shoved up her ass._

_Carol was four years older than Jane, then. She was, based on the linear progression of time, still four year older than Jane, now._

_For all these years, they have stayed friends, sometimes with benefit. Although the friendship could only be described as bizarre, they stayed somewhat close nonetheless. This was, among the few precious things that made the decade plus within the Cube bearable for Jane._

Carol closed the distance between them, and with one graceful spin sat on top of Jane’s desk, towering over her. Jane finally looked up at her, and, in spite of herself, lingered her eyes on her body. Beneath a simple leather jacket, she was wearing a full body fishnet that left very little to the imagination. Her fair skin seemed to be shinning silver beneath the black web, and her breast were so lovingly outlined by the fishnet that her nipples were poking out from the gaps, teasing all who chose to stare.

And stare, Jane did. Carol noticed, and smiled like a siren of the dark sea. Her lips were painted blood red. Slowly, she set one foot on Jane’s armrest, completely entering her space, and opened herself up even more. It was not so much an invitation as it was a taunt, daring the timid young woman to react. It annoyed Jane to no end that, after the long while they knew each other, she still found herself flustered by these small interactions.

“I’m kind of busy, right now.” Prying her gaze away, she whispered, finally looking into the trainer’s amused jade eyes.

Carol’s tone was almost sympathetic: “I can tell, even though you promised yourself, _with me as the witness_ , that you would not work overtime on your days off.” When Jane dramatically rolled her eyes in response, she clicked her tongue playfully. “Here,” she handed her a paper cup Jane didn’t notice she was holding, “for you.”

“You know I don’t drink coffee.”

“Why, I do know,” Carol raised her eyebrows beautifully, “it’s tea. Got it after I heard you arrive a while ago.” She held out the paper cup further towards her: “Sorry it isn’t how you usually like it. They didn’t have enough sugar packages in the coffee shop.”

“…Thank you, Carol.” When she reached her hand out to take the cup, Carol quickly retracted the cup and, while looking at Jane dead in the eyes, took a long and casual sip from the cup. When she finally handed the cup to her, there was a smudge of lipstick on the rim. “Here you go.”

Jane smiled back and took the cup. It was still steaming.

“Forgot to sleep again, huh?”

“What makes you say that?”

“Your voice is a lot more jittery today.”

There was a dry chuckle. “I thought you had today off, too.” Her tone had softened, and now she talked to Carol like how one would talk to a close friend.

“Yeah… I was rehearsing. The next show is coming up,” the trainer replied.

Jane paused at that. It was odd. Whenever Carol performed for a large crowd, she always had her personal slave as her subject on stage to ensure the performance was as close to perfection as possible. Cici was the slave’s name, and Carol had owned her for as long as Jane could remember. This pair of master and slave knew each other’s limits and preferences and body languages like the back of their own hands, and the two could perfect a routine after just one rehearsal.

“It’s a bit early for rehearsals, isn’t it?” The next show was still a week away. “Wait, are you finally performing with someone else?”

“Nope, still got my Cici, but… yeah, there’s someone else this time,” Carol shrugged, “boss gave me Mina for the show.”

Jane’s eyes widened ever so slightly. Mistress Eden, as people might expect for someone with her level of power and wealth, owned plenty of slaves. However, there were only a handful she actually cared about, and perhaps only two could be described as her favorite. Mina was one of the two. “Why?”

Carol hummed and thought for a moment. “Because Eden wanted two human cows for the performance, you know, to make it a bit more special…” when Jane just stared at her and expected further explanation, she made a face like she got a toothache, “…because –I am not supposed to tell you this –because the mayor will be there for the show. Boss wants to meet with him. Business related stuff.”

Taking a sip, Jane violently chocked on her hot sugary leaf juice when she heard what she said. She started coughing uncontrollably. “ _WHAT?!_ ”

“See, Eden thought you would be overly stressed about this,” Carol gestured vaguely at Jane, completely unbothered by the fact that she was coughing her lungs out, “so she elected not to tell you.”

_Eden goddamn Green._

_That motherfucker,_ Jane thought.

“That motherfucker,” Jane said, burying her eyes in her palms, “that literal motherfucker.”

“That’s quite an accusation.”

The tired secretary groaned. Her fingers scratched at her scalp in frustration. “Well, that _allegedly_ -literal-motherfucker’s concern about my work-life-balance has once again spectacularly DICKED. ME. OVER.” She did not have time for this. Not right now.

“Speaking of work-life balance,” slightly startled by her rage, Carol tried to change the subject, “why are _you_ here right now, on your day off?” Then she glanced at Jane’s computer screen, and saw the databank of slaves. Her face shafted from uncertain to concern. “No… Are you trying to find Daisy again? I thought you already got over…”

Inhaling sharply, Jane glared at the other woman. Her lips were pressed into a tight, thin line. Her eyes were cold and steely, and her silence a harsh warning without a single trace of humour. The wound was still too fresh and hurt too deep, and she would not allow anyone, especially Carol, to so casually bring up _her_ name.

Carol’s voice trailed off, and she gave a sheepish smile. Slowly, she removed her foot from the armrest, and got off the desk herself. “Forgive me,” she whispered.

Silence again. Neither of them looked at each other.

“Ah well, I left the two gals hanging for too long,” the trainer stretched, “guess I better get going.” Leaning forward, she rested a hand on Jane’s shoulder, and met her ebony eyes with her own jade coloured ones, sincerely this time. “Take care, okay?”

Jane gave her a weak smile.

“Good!” Just like that, Carol’s voice turned instantly jovial, as if all the awkwardness mere moments ago never happened, “because if you have a heart attack and drop dead on the job, I might have to deal with a new superior who’s not a complete pushover.”

“You know there are still plenty of people who fear me, right? I can just fire you right now on the spot and don’t even need to report to Eden about it.” Jane’s tone lightened, too. Gone was the bitterness, returned was the dry indifference.

“Oh, honey. That’s cute.” The trainer smiled brightly, and so casually flicked the tired woman on the forehead. It was hard enough that Jane had to bite back a yelp. Rubbing her forehead, she watched with slight annoyance as Carol strutted out of her office.

Thus she was alone again.

…

_Back to work, then._

The lengthened list, predictably, did not contain the specific young runaway.

When Jane took another sip from the cup, she closed her lips intentionally around the red smudge on the rim. Emptily, she stared at the screen, and sighed.

_Oh, Lisa. Who are you?_

Cracking her neck, she switched to the data log of buyers. _Three thorns, eight petals_. If her owner bought any other slaves from the Cube, or even just signed up for training courses, she could find Lisa this way.

The list was even longer.

Going through it person by person took up another handful of hours. Frustratingly, the thorny rose did not show up, either. At this point, Jane was too exhausted to be annoyed. Numbly, she spun sluggishly in her chair, and watched as the sun slowly disappeared behind the cityscape. It looked cold outside.

Briefly, she wondered why she was trying so hard to help the runaway. Being in her position of work, she learned how to be patient long ago; being in the family she was adopted into, devotion was etched into her very being. However, the devotion was always towards her mistress. Why then, was she now exhausting herself beyond recognition for a girl she met less than 24 hours ago? Why was she now destroying her own body bit by bit, other than the sheer masochistic joy in the act itself? She knew the answer already.

_Guilt._

Jane slowly counted to 100. The outlines of the buildings outside of the floor-to-ceiling window left behind phantom shapes in the darkness as she closed her eyes.

_1… 2… 3…_

On the first week she officially was given this office, a bird flew directly into this very same window, broke its neck, dropped all the way to the ground, and died. The young woman took it as an omen, and thought she was going to die in seven days. She didn’t, so she must had been thinking of some other curse. Still, it was proven to be a bad omen, nonetheless. Now she was stuck, in a job she was way too good at to despise, but it had taken too much from her to be bearable.

_…97… 98… 99…_

She could not dwell on those thoughts, not when there was still a young girl who she had promised to help.

_…100._

That was all the rest she allowed herself. With the count completed, Jane opened her eyes. There was still another place to look. The city had its own databank on all the slavers, so even if Lisa’s owner was never a client at the Cube, so long as they were a registered citizen of this city, they could still be found. Of course, it was very illegal for private entities to access these data. However, the Green family had been blissfully unbothered by legality for a very, very long time.

The woman scrolled through the new list, and…

…and there it was, as clear as day: three thorns, eight petals. Beside it was the name of the owner: Mallory Heart.

_The mayor’s wife._

That little thing –Lisa –belonged to –and ran away from –the mayor’s wife.

In her tired state, the revelation took a few seconds to process, and then it hit her like a freight train: she had helped a runaway who was the mayor’s property hide from the law.

_Fuuuuuck meeeee………._

In this warm and empty room, Jane felt herself shiver. White static noises filled her brain. Then a mighty voice pierced her haze from the heavens: “Jesus fucking Christ you’re still here.”

Her gaze still distant, Jane replied with shaky voice: “Please kill me.”

“That would be a waste of such a pretty face,” Carol was again leaning on the door, but had now changed out of her work outfit, “and a waste of that nice ass.”

“I’ll let you fuck my corpse if you do it.”

“Hmm…” the trainer paused, looked off to the middle-distance, and appeared to be in deed thoughts. “Nah, not really into that.” Walking up to her again, she leaned forward and gave Jane a hug, burying the secretary’s face between her breasts. “Oh you poor baby, are you really this tired?”

Jane didn’t bother to resist, and let Carol slowly stroke her hair like a puppy. Glancing off to the door way, she saw the two slaves in their mid-thirties kneeling side by side, naked but for their collars and metal nipple clamps. Attached to both collars was a single metal leash, which was now tied to the handle of the office door. Their milk-filled breasts were huge and now shiny with massage oil and covered in cane marks. The blonde one was Cici, who belonged to Carol; the brunette was Mina, who…

Jane could hear the gears turning noisily in her brain.

_…who Mistress Eden lent to Carol for the next event…_

_…_

“Carol?”

“Hm?”

“I think I’m about to do something that might bring me to ruins.”

“That sounds about right.”

“It might bring you to ruins as well.”

“Ah,” Carol kept on petting her, “do your best.”

* * *

When Jane finally got out of the Cube, it was already pitch dark.

Her mind was so fried with exhaustion that how she got home was a blur. Somewhere along the line she had stopped to buy dinner, possibly.

At the front door of her own house, she briefly hesitated. _What if Lisa had decided to run off after all?_ With a deep breath and a sigh, she walked through the door.

And she found the young girl, looking deadly adorable in the plain jeans and t-shirt and jacket Jane had given her, lounging in the kitchen with her face buried in Jane’s smutty romance novel. As Jane walked in, Lisa smiled brightly at her. There was something cooking on the stove. Apparently, not only had the young girl decided to stay, she had made dinner for the two of them as well.

In a haze, Jane ate and made small talks with the slave, remembering none of her actions as they occurred. The only sentence she said to Lisa that she remembered was: “We need to talk again, _soon._ ”

With that, she stumbled into her bedroom, and collapsed onto the bed after tossing all her clothes hastily onto the floor. Not taking any chances, she decided to take her medicine to ensure her sleep. From the drawer of her nightstand she took out a small glass flask containing a clear liquid. Attached to the inside of the lid was a plastic dropper.

The woman dripped two drops onto her tongue, and barely was able to put the flask back into the drawer before drifting into a death-like sleep.

She would have to talk to Lisa again when she wake up, _thoroughly_ , this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember when I said I would update faster now? *stare into the camera* I lied. :)
> 
> Anyway, new characters!


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